One Step Too Far (Frankie Elkin #2)(96)

“Scott and Neil,” he murmurs finally.

He might be crying. I’m about to. We tried. We tried very hard. But now, this injured, in the middle of nowhere, no cell signal for help. I’m out of ideas. I’m out of strength. I’m out of will.

We’re both shivering.

I open up Miguel’s backpack, fumble around for some dry shirts, and set them on his lap. Then do the same for myself. In the end, I can’t lift my right arm. I don’t know how to get the wet clothes off, let alone put the dry clothes on.

Beside me, Miguel hasn’t even tried to move.

“I could help . . .” I venture. My words come out thick. The rule of threes. Only three hours without shelter in adverse conditions. We are wet and rapidly losing body heat and the temperatures are only going to plummet further. We need to move; we can’t even manage a change of clothes.

“A fire,” he sighs at last. “Maybe . . . maybe some heat would help.”

“I have cotton balls dipped in Vaseline.”

His smile is a flash of white in the gathering dark. “Party on.”

I keep my efforts simple. Dead twigs and pine cones I can scrounge in the immediate vicinity. I find my knife where I dropped it in the tussle, and use it to hack out a small section of clean dirt. The ground is dry and fairly easy to clear.

Miguel oversees my efforts with his ragged breathing. Finally, I touch a greasy fire starter with my butane lighter, and puff, we end up with a very modest burst of flames. My first ever campfire.

I think of my father, and that night, and the scent of Jack Daniel’s. Everything I love and hate so tightly woven together as a single bittersweet memory.

Miggy manages to pull himself closer, moaning slightly. He looks even worse by the light of the fire. He has a savage slash across his face, but the true damage is to his chest. Tree man turned Miggy’s torso into something out of a zombie flick.

My issues are my arm, shoulder, and ankle. Interestingly enough, neither of them would normally be life-threatening. Except, of course, when you’re stranded in the middle of the wilderness with no access to the civilized world.

We’re both still shaking with the cold. I lean over the fire better to warm my hands. Miguel’s movements are more feeble. He’s fading fast and knows it.

“Tell me a story,” he says at last.

“About a princess and a frog?”

“Maybe about a band of brothers. Who set out in the woods.”

I play along. “A wild beast emerges. He roars and attacks.”

“One brother is separated from the others.”

“But he doesn’t give up. He journeys the forest looking for a way out. He’s determined to survive.”

“The other four search for him. But the beast comes back. They fight. One by one. They fall.”

“But the first brother is still watching over them,” I counter. “He wants his brothers to live.”

“They were lousy brothers. They never should’ve separated in the first place.”

“He understands. He still wants them to live.”

“But the forest is the forest.” Miggy sighs. “It wants the brothers to be together again. For all of eternity.”

“The first brother fights the forest.”

Miguel looks at me. “The first brother is already dead.”

“You are not very good at stories, Miggy.”

“What did you expect? I’m an engineer.”

“More water?” I offer. Because Miggy’s not wrong. In terms of happily ever afters, we’re shit out of luck.

“Tell my father I went down fighting.”

“Nope. You want him to know, show up and show off your battle scars yourself.”

“You shouldn’t have joined our mad little party.”

“It’s what I do.”

“Die with strangers?”

“Honestly? I always figured I’d die alone. So all in all, this is progress.”

“Did you do something terrible?” he asks me curiously. “Or did someone do something terrible to you? Is that why you now drift from place to place?”

“No. Though once there was a man who loved me more than I could love him. And he ended up dying because of that love, but it wasn’t really my fault, or even his fault. Just one of those things. But I’d started wandering even before that. It hurt him that I didn’t love him enough to stay. And hurt me that he didn’t understand my need to leave.”

“I haven’t cared about someone that much yet.”

“Maybe your new face will do the trick.”

“Chicks dig scars?”

“Exactly.”

“Frankie, in the bottom of my pack. There’s a flask. Get it.”

I assume he means another stainless steel water bottle, so it takes my fingers a moment to register the shape. A real flask. The old-fashioned, thin, rectangular kind with a screw-off cap. I free it from the backpack and find myself staring. I talked to Neil about being an alcoholic. But I’ve never mentioned it to Miggy.

“I brought it,” Miguel murmurs, the whistle building in his chest. “For when we found Tim. One last toast. A fitting farewell, I don’t know.”

My fingers are trembling as I hand it over. I inhale deeply as he loosens the cap.